


The Avatar's Love

by pendatol



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, True Love, basically Raava looking at the Avatar's girlfriends and deciding they have good taste, don't know what else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23992312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendatol/pseuds/pendatol
Summary: Raava has seen hundreds of Avatars come and go. Since she merged with Wan, her spirit has been kept alive by his reincarnations.One by one, she watched as they grew up and each learned all the elements, kept the peace, and struggled with their personal problems. And one by one, she watched as the Avatar fell in love.Raava's musing on five Avatars, their way of loving their partners and what she learned from them. Based on the five love languages as defined by Gary Chapman.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Korra/Asami Sato, Kuruk/Ummi (Avatar), Kyoshi/Rangi (Avatar), Roku/Ta Min (Avatar)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 464





	The Avatar's Love

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I finally read The Rise of Kyoshi, fell in love with Rangi, and started wondering about all these gorgeous women the Avatar keeps falling in love with. Each Avatar gets their own love language. Slight spoilers for The Rise of Kyoshi. Enjoy!

Raava has seen hundreds of Avatars come and go. Since she merged with Wan, her spirit has been kept alive by his reincarnations.

One by one, she watched as they grew up and each learned all the elements, kept the peace, and struggled with their personal problems. And one by one, she watched as the Avatar fell in love.

She watched as they repeated the same mistakes. It’s important that they make the same mistakes, she told herself. They have to experience human connection over and over again to value the world they’re protecting. And that side of things was most definitely not Raava’s responsibility. The Avatar’s latest romantic complication was not something she thought she had to be dealing with.

And she didn’t. And yet... After ten thousand years of watching cycles repeat, she found herself a spectator of the Avatar’s love.

* * *

Kuruk had been way too easy-going for his own good from the very beginning. It was one thing to “go with the flow”, as Water Avatars often did, but Kuruk... well, he was Kuruk.

He travelled the Four Nations, taking names and breaking hearts. Raava had hoped that as the years passed, he’d take his responsibilities more seriously. Until he was needed, though, she figured he could take his time exploring humanity and relationships.

Time. Funny how adamant Kuruk was about time flowing exactly the way he wanted it to. Never staying in one place for too long, always savouring every moment. Until moments started passing him by and not the other way around.

He took his time acting on his feelings for Hei-Ran until it was too late. It took Kelsang to convince him not to ruin a marriage just because he couldn’t figure out his feelings until after their friend was married. Raava wondered if this might be the catalyst for Kuruk’s changing his attitude towards the world.

But then, of course, he met Ummi. Ummi, who was everything Kuruk ever wanted and, more importantly, needed from a partner. She was just as adventurous but more cautious, more reasonable. She was his voice of reason and his anchor to reality. The time they spent together was the happiest Raava ever felt Kuruk be.

There’s only so much Raava can do as a spirit living in co-existence with a human. She couldn’t, for example, foresee what Koh would do on the day of Kuruk and Ummi’s marriage. The marriage that never was, the rest of their time together stolen in a single moment.

Raava could not stop Kuruk from venturing into the Spirit World and making it his life’s goal to hunt Koh down. She tried to, how she tried to reason with him. But Kuruk wanted his stolen time back and there was no stopping him.

All of it brought about his own end. His time was cut short, becoming one of the youngest Avatar’s to die at age 33. The time he treasured with Ummi, the short span of time that changed him, matured him into a better Avatar and a better person. That time made him unable to accept a future without her. He was haunted by the memories they never got to make and paid the price for it.

Kuruk's decision to sacrifice it all lead to unrest and 16 years of frustration for Raava and she watched the world reject and ignore the new Avatar and fall into chaos. Still, ten thousand years of watching the Avatar fall in love, again and again, made her understand Kuruk’s decision. For him, time with Ummi was the beginning of a life he never got to have.

* * *

Kyoshi appreciated the sacrifice much less. Every Avatar faced the consequences of their predecessor’s actions and Kyoshi was no exception. Raava sometimes wondered if Kyoshi living to be 230 was out of pure spite for Kuruk’s short lifespan. The Earth Avatar did that well, spite.

But Raava could see Kyoshi’s softer side from her early life. Her teenage years as a servant shaped her into a humble and decisive person, a stark contrast to her predecessor. It made her appreciate smaller acts others might dismiss and she was keen to show affection this way long after she stopped being a servant.

A life of humility was not the only thing Kuruk gave Kyoshi. He might have been arrogant and immature, but his missed chance with Hei-Ran gave Kyoshi her chance at love. It gave her Rangi.

As her bodyguard, Rangi, by definition, was serving Kyoshi. The firebender was devoted to her Avatar, just as honour dictated. But Raava knew, just as Kyoshi and Rangi knew, that their relationship went beyond the formalities. Before Kyoshi was the Avatar, she was Rangi’s friend. Even before becoming her bodyguard, Rangi was looking out for Kyoshi fin a way few others had before.

It was their version of love. True to the rigid structures of their society and yet free in their own way. After a while, the lines blurred. Rangi wasn’t by Kyoshi’s side out of duty to the Avatar but to her love. And Kyoshi loved her in return, the Avatar serving her partner just as she served the world.

In a world as treacherous as Kyoshi's was, loyalty is really all you could ask from a person. Raava rarely ever experienced anything matching the sense of loyalty that Kyoshi and Rangi shared. It made her understand even more the importance of the Avatar living their human life over and over again. After all, only an Avatar who truly appreciated the small everyday gestures could be trusted with making world-changing decisions.

Kyoshi served in Rangi's honour even after the firebender's death. That was the thing about living to be the oldest Avatar in history, many others were lost along the way. But Kyoshi never wavered in her devotion to those she loved. Unlike Kuruk, she had all the time in the world and used all of it to serve. Serve her world, serve justice, serve the memory of the firebender who stuck up for her when no one else would.

Raava thought about devotion, about how the world had changed so much in ten thousand years but they never stopped being devoted to each other. Spirits existed in relation to nature, a realm of balance. Maybe humans existed more in relation to each other. They certainly seemed to judge their own value based on how they served others. Raava knew, just as Kyoshi knew, how corrupt that could make people. But then again, Kyoshi knew more than anyone how it could make people feel whole.

* * *

Roku had two items he treasured above all others in the world.

One was a necklace Ta Min gave him as an engagement gift. There was no tradition regarding necklaces and marriage in the Fire Nation, but Roku spent decades travelling the world before he got back home to Ta Min. In acknowledgment of his status as the Avatar and therefore the keeper of all cultures, Ta Min did the unexpected and proposed to him with a necklace that represented that.

The other item was the Crown Prince’s headpiece that Sozin had given him before Roku began his journey across the nations. In contrast to Ta Min’s Four Nations necklace, Sozin’s headpiece reminded him of home. It served as a constant reminder that he was the Fire Avatar and, as Roku would later find out, that Sozin expected his loyalties to stay with his nation.

Both items represented love for Roku. Even as his relationship with Sozin became strained and as he semi-retired with Ta Min, no longer travelling the world, he never forgot the meaning behind them.

It’s funny, Raava thought, how Roku himself never seemed to realize how those gifts also represented his duality, his struggle. In the end, much like Kuruk, love was the end of him. Instead of leaving the island with Ta Min, instead of travelling somewhere else, he stayed. He stayed and trusted in Sozin, as the symbol of their bond was still one of his most treasured possessions.

Raava never much cared for material possessions. For her, the entire material world was a human realm, nothing to do with spirits or spirituality itself. And yet, she couldn’t help but wonder if the significance humans bestowed upon objects gave them power beyond the material.

Roku's love for Ta Min allowed space for his destiny as the Avatar. Ta Min always hated to watch him fly away with Fang, wondering whether he would come back, but she understood. Each time, Roku would return, fresh from saving the world from a new disaster. Each time he did, Roku would bring a little memento of his mission. This way, whenever he was gone, Ta Min could remind herself of the importance of his duty. That part of the reasoning behind the necklace as well, after all. He was her husband, her love, but he belonged to the nations as well.

When Roku stayed behind on the island and Ta Min's boat rowed away, she kept Sozin's headpiece for him. She knew it meant just as much to him as her necklace, or as his gifts did to her. She kept the headpiece and passed it down to their daughter, even as she knew it was the symbol of a bond broken.

A century later, Sozin’s headpiece made its way to Zuko and the great friendship between him and Aang began soon after. A bond restored, the way Raava saw it. She still wasn't entirely convinced of the power of material objects, but she was beginning to see how human perception shaped everything in the physical realm. If human perception saw that objects could hold such meanings, then be it.

* * *

Aang spent a century frozen in ice. He didn’t feel time passing but Raava did, every moment of it.

Raava recognized the significance of the first thing Aang felt when being freed from the iceberg. Katara's embrace. Katara's eyes looking into his. _Katara_.

Much like material possessions, Raava never made much of physical needs. Humans craved proximity and craved physical pleasure, concepts so foreign to Raava she never even dared question them. But with as with many other human concepts, Raava witnessed the importance of different shades of human physical contact through the Avatar.

Katara’s touch became Aang’s happy place. Every palm to the cheek, every gentle hand on the shoulder, every time she threw her arms around his neck. For an Air Avatar, Aang sure was grounded in the intimacy of his relationship with Katara.

Raava often felt like an outside observer as the Avatars lived on and went about their daily lives. Being human involved so many things that were simply out of her league. She needn’t be part of domesticity, of the daily routine of existing in the physical realm.

Aang taught her about feeling connection on a physical level. When Katara embraced Aang, when she squeezed his hand in reassurance, Raava was no longer an outside observer. She could feel Aang’s spirit calm through her touch.

As a young and untrained Avatar, Aang was particularly vulnerable to the Avatar State after his awakening from the iceberg. He was the youngest Avatar to be aware of his powers in a long while. As his mind tried to cope with trauma and loss the likes of which even Raava rarely ever encountered, she couldn’t stop the Avatar State from overtaking him. In those moments, neither of them was in control. It was the pure, unadulterated power of hundreds of Avatar’s and their emotions guiding the elements.

And yet... Katara’s touch calmed Aang. It calmed Raava and it calmed the very concept of the Avatar. It was love on a scale Raava never could have imagined before. Not before merging with Wan and deciding that she would live on along with a human soul.

Even as Aang and Katara grew and their physical relationship went beyond quick kisses and gentle squeezes, the importance of the small things never faded. All Aang ever needed was to feel Katara next to him.

It was inexplicable to Raava, the way Aang's reaction affected her too. The evidence was clearly there, though, in the many times Katara managed to take Aang out of the Avatar State with her touch. Even more inexplicably? Raava delighted in all those moments when Korra would rush to hug her waterbending master with any excuse.

It was different than with Aang, of course, but Katara's gentle hand on Korra's shoulder made Raava feel the overwhelming love that Aang once felt. There was no point in denying just what physical connection meant to humans after that.

* * *

Korra was the first Avatar in an entire cycle Raava directly communicated with.

Her circumstances were unique, her responsibilities even higher than that of Avatars before her. Raava was grateful for the opportunity to speak with Korra during these difficult times. It wasn’t always easy, getting through to her. But she found that Korra needed things said out loud more than other Avatars did.

Korra's "punch first, ask questions later" attitude didn't give the impression that words mattered much to her. But Raava soon realized that, for such an action-ready person, Korra needed words. She needed people to tell her she would be okay, she needed to know that they still believed in her.

It took her a while, but Korra caught on to what Asami was saying to her. She started recognizing Asami’s words of encouragement and reassurance for what they were. She became more confident in returning compliments, in being open and vocal about her feelings.

Asami’s words became her crutch, her voice Korra’s drive. And Korra tried her best to reciprocate, to let Asami know what she meant to her. Even when the Red Lotus traumatized Korra so much she temporarily shut Raava out, Asami’s words made her feel loved.

Raava had always been with Korra, even during those difficult years, and she could feel what Asami’s letters meant to her. Korra herself was still learning, learning about so much. Learning about recovery. Learning how to process her feelings, how to communicate them. When she finally got around to writing her letter to Asami, Raava felt the weight Korra carried become much lighter.

So this is what it comes down to, Raava thought. Words. Words helped Korra and Asami work through their time apart. They helped them face each and every obstacle. Words meant everything as they both processed trauma.

Of course, words could be empty, which was the source of Raava's skepticism at first. People liked to talk big, profess their love, make promises they knew they couldn't keep. And yet, Raava watched as Korra matured and made a conscious effort to value words. Asami understood that need, she shared it. Their words became a foundation for a life together. And as Raava listened, she once again found herself learning about love and the different forms it takes.

“You're looking snazzy as always.”

“I am _so_ sorry for what happened.”

“Just the two of us.”

"Are you okay?"

"I love you, too."

"I do."

**Author's Note:**

> Depending on your reading, Roku's section is more about Sozin than Ta Min, lol. Whether that's platonic love or not it's up to you to decide. Even before starting this, I felt like Roku's would be the hardest because we barely saw his relationship with Ta Min.
> 
> What do you think, which Avatar would you assign the love languages to?
> 
> Kuruk - Quality Time  
> Kyoshi - Acts of Service  
> Roku - Gifts  
> Aang - Physical Touch  
> Korra - Words of Affirmation


End file.
